Vig

Not on board with all the criticism. Sure it's synthetic as hell, but I'm not hearing that as a problem. Clean sounds, clean mix. Could use more bottom, but I'm letting that slide since it's a rock arrangement. Great details to the writing and production. Only complaint about the writing is that it's a bit repetitive, but honestly this is a pretty solid track. YES

The intro is just way too long. It has nothing to do with the source, and it's not captivating enough on its own to really add to the track. Cut it in half at least. This track has nothing to do with techno, for the record. It's cinematic rock that happens to have a couple synths. That said, the soundscape is extremely dense, and it doesn't vary nearly enough. You've got to have some space here and there. The strings and pads and stuff create a wash. You've got to side chain them. Your vocal pad in the background is CONSTANT. It's not adding anything because it's always there. Good first effort though, some great writing ideas, some cool sounds. You've definitely got to work on making space for everything though. NO

The reason the kick is not working is because nothing is side chained. Side chain everything else and suddenly you've got room to make everything else louder. It's also too busy. The kick, that is. The arrangement is also too busy and repetitive. Electronic music does have breaks and builds. NO Also, this sounds nothing like a requiem.

Great orchestration. The panning is a bit hard; doesn't sound realistic. You've got those violins left and horns right, which is where they are supposed to be, but they are all verbed out, and in an orchestra the reverb will be all the same for every instrument, and nothing is going to actually sound so hard-panned. Nitpicking. To be honest I loved the first half more than the second half, not because the second half is worse, but this is 6.5 minutes of high-energy dramatic writing. I think you need a soft section or two, cause listening to this track gets exhausting. For this reason I don't see myself listening to it again, but I definitely appreciate the intricacy and execution. Maybe in the future think more about overall dynamic. Yes

In my opinion the thing that separates great electronic music from the cookie-cutter is not so much sound design as arrangement/transitions. Gotta have those builds, breaks, drops, etc. This track has pretty solid sound design and effects and stuff, but lacks dramatic transitions. It's a bit flat dynamically. This is holding the track back. NO

Great performances, the mixing is pretty flat, but not terrible. Would have liked more reverb on most things, and more compression on the bass and drums. Most modern jazz mixes are at least gonna have more space in the mix, if not a ton of compression. I'd also mix the horns a bit brighter and the bass a bit darker. This is fairly nitpicky of me though. I do think the arrangement could have been a few minutes shorter, but I disagree with the notion that the track is dynamically flat, or lacking in direction. The energy level is anything but static, and it does come full-circle at the end. Ultimately, the complaints I have about the mix are next to irrelevant, and the complaints I have about the medlyitis/arrangement aren't insignificant, but not nearly so egregious as to overshadow the exemplary performances. I think this is a great piece of writing and performance that would be a shame to miss out on. YES

Thanks guys! greatly appreciated. It was a completely surreal experience. Those of you who have added me on facebook can see the video I took on my phone of the moment they announced it. We knew it was possible, but going up against Calvin Harris, Armin Van Buuren, etc. we figured we were kind of a long shot. Obviously I'm pretty proud of my contributions to the song, but it's really been an honor and a pleasure to be able to work with Zedd so closely for the past 2.5 years. Beyond just winning the grammy, it was such a crazy day. Got to see Daft Punk perform with Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Kendrick with Imagine Dragons, etc...then 33 couples got married during Macklemore's performance...it was an overwhelming show. Anyway, I could ramble on, but thanks again everybody. OCRemix is, for all intents and purposes, where I got my start.

Holy shit. Best remix name of the year. The Tenchu soundtrack was amazing, and I think one of the main reasons it hasn't been tackled more often is that, where do you take it from where it already is? This remix has a pretty cool atmosphere, though the bass is begging for a side chain. My main complaint with this track is a lack of dynamics. There's not a whole lot of variation in the beat or the bass, and it gets a bit exhausting. Especially on energetic electronic tracks you have to have a lot of builds and breaks to avoid fatigue. I'd say this is a great start, but you've got to add some elements to make it more dynamic. NO

Yeah I'm with larry. The drums in particular lack punch and highs. The guitar playing is pretty good though. The arrangement is solid except for a case of medlyitis. Nice solo. Workshop it and work on the mix first. NO

first thing: that drum is tuned to the major7th of the key. Tune it up one half step. Sonically, you've got some cool aggressive sounds. The problem is that all your aggressive sounds sound exactly the same. There's a wall of sound, but there's no character to any of the sounds, and there's no sonic variety, so it just seems very static. You've got to make your elements different in order to pull off that dense drop type thing. NO

The jitter of the groove threw me off bigtime. It does give it personality though. The rhythmic oddity doesn't bother my by the end of the track. The harmony and partwriting in this track are really freakin' solid. Awesome writing. Whether you like the groove or not, this track is tight. YES

Having remixed both Aquatic Ambience and Funky's Fuge separately with popular and catastrophic results, respectively, I'm extremely interested to hear how you mixed the two together, and befuddled as to why you would even attempt such a thing. Okay. The groove is awesome. I would like to hear some higher voices, cause all the fundamentals are pretty low. Nothing really in the higher register. The famous AA arpeggio andl melody come in like turds in a punchbowl. The choir holds a major chord where the arp and melody are very minor. This sounds like a very obvious and terrible mistake. These melodies sound pretty shoehorned in anyway...the track would be more enjoyable without the AA elements. Call me crazy but I didn't hear the Funky song at all. In fact I didn't hear any source until I was halfway through. Dude this isn't a remix at all. Just get rid of the awful clashing Aquatic Ambience elements in the second half and you've got yourself a nice solo track. Take it. The publishing is yours. NO

After the 1-minute mark the arrangement gets extremely noodly. There's just a ton of random melodic ideas stepping on each other and not developing at all, while the rhythm section does little or nothing in terms of variation to keep the listener interested. This section is really just a waste of time. The mix is really quite mono for the most part. The pads have some stereo space to them, but the leads really don't, and for a track like this you really want to have a lush and evolving soundscape. On the whole this was a pretty easy call. Way too much noodling, not nearly enough direction and development. NO

I swear one of my biggest pet peeves regardless of genre is a chordal instrument that plays one whole-note chord per bar. It's so boring. The fusion idea is interesting. The groove works, as does the bass. But you've got to fix that ELP like, a lot. They don't call it the rhythm section for nothing. Mixing: Lots of distortion, and if you're going for any kind of house feel, you need to sidechain some stuff. NO

The xylophone is way too loud compared to the lead piano. You need to sidechain. It helps tighten the track up and make it bang. At the 1-minute mark, the chord rhythm is awkward because it repeats after one bar, resulting in a 1/16th hit at the end of each bar. Syncopate it. Let that last hit carry over to the next bar. My advice in terms of arrangement is to go listen to some progressive house and really pay attention to the structure, instrumentation, and dynamics. It's all about break, build, drop, release. This is a bit too static. NO

Oh my, how can any rock arrangement of this song ever beat "Ken Song?" Your drum sequencing is pretty interesting. The guitar performance is fine, but the tone is pretty dull and dry. Not a lot of life. The strings are too loud. In a metal/rock mix like this, strings help support the midrange, but you really don't want them sticking out so much. You should bring the rhythm guitars up and the strings down. I really liked some of the phrasing in the solo, particularly before you decided you were getting paid by the note and went a little over the top. The solo is by far the best part of the song. Great work. Some fantastic guitar playing over a pretty generic rock remix. I wish I could pass it. Look forward to hearing more guitar from you in the future. NO

Hmm. No offense but I'm not really hearing what the others are here. I'm not crazy about the melodic simplification, and the arrangement is both sparse and quite repetitive. A bass and a melody, occasionally a harmony, all playing the same exact rhythm. Not a lot to surprise you as you listen. NO

Bonus points for the title. The groove is pretty cool, but this song is quite repetitive sonically. The drums keep the song moving, and they rarely change. The melodic elements are also pretty reetitive. I think there's some good stuff in here, but overall I'd try to make it build more dynamically. NO

Larry's first thought is my first thought. Way muddy and washy. The filter does open a bit, but it's still a pretty dark soundscape. The first section never really develops. It's very sparse, and without the drums it would be next to empty. There's building, but then there's just not having enough going on. The second section is more busy, but again, the harmonic elements are all dark, and most of upper mids and highs are from distortion, noise, and drums. so the harmonic content is still washy. NO

The piano sounds way too wet and dull. Especially for this context it should be bright and dryer. It washes away. I love the intro. The rest of the track is pretty cool, though a little loose and straightforward. I also agree that the mix is too bright. In terms of execution, it's strange that the piano sounds so inhuman but the guitars are in some spots not tight at all, rhythmically or in tune. This is the nature of performance vs. sequencing, but hearing both problems on opposite ends of the spectrum is a bit strange. I also think the guitar solo towards the end is straight-up unnecesssary. If you tightened it up it might be cool, but it's loose, and nothing changes in the rhythm section from the rest of the song, so it gets a bit tedious. I'm pretty close on this one. NO

Listen to this man.

I enjoy this piece but I don't know if I can pass it. I hear some relationships between the remix and the original, but it seems a little tenuous. I also think this remix lacks solid compelling transitions, which is crucial for such a sound-design centered track as this. I'm just not following. I think there are some awesome ideas. which are too spread out, and too sparsely elaborated. NO

I do enjoy some of the sound design. Very gritty and lo-fi. The mixing is pretty not good though. Boxy. Low mids abound. I do like a lot of the writing, particularly some of the synth solo writing is very tasteful. On the other hand, there are lots of sections with way too much space. This is a tough call, but I'm thinking it needs a bit more development, or to be shortened. NO

This is pretty cookie-cutter in terms of the arrangement. The production is alright, i'm just really not feeling there's much here that's creative or compelling. Sorry to be glib, but there's nothing else I can say at the moment. Study some contemporary electronic arrangements and see how they keep it interesting. NO

The answer to your question is 100% context-dependent. Can you provide a sample of your work that you would like advice on?